Need some input about mobile app options for Phpfox!

Hi guys, I know a lot of people have left Phpfox and are not using it on their sites nowadays, but we have invested quite a lot of money into our site (PF v3.8) and so we'll stick with that for some time still and now we could really use some opinions from old/current owners. The thing is, the site looks and works great both in desktop and in mobile, it has a lot of good content, we make some really nice promotions often, etc. Buuuuuuuuut... we are kind of stucked. Can't grow at the pace we need to become economically viable and in a recent marketing research we found out that the lack of a mobile app plays a big role in that. So we are going for it, we NEED to have our own mobile app (along with a few other things we found out with the research).

From what I see there is only 2 options out there in terms of mobile apps for Phpfox v3:

I really don't know what is the best way to go. I know many people have had issues with YouNetCo and don't trust them, I also see that now they are the owners of Phpfox. On the other hand I don't know or heard much about Phpfoxer and don't own any of their modules. From what i see and from what I can judge from the outside, YouNetCo app seems to be more "complete" and has a cool look. On the other hand Phpfoxer app has some interesting features and I have never heard any bad thing about them.

So, please please please... does anyone here have ever used any of these two mobile app options? Any opinions on which one to choose? Are there other mobile app options of which I'm unaware of?

Comments

They are on this site, phpFoxer. If you want, you can tag them and they can come explain their app. I didn't tag them in case you didn't want them to come. There are already discussions about both apps in my archives as well:

I compare both of them side by side and YouNet version was a lot better but that was several months ago. But you should get a phone from your friend or family and compare both side by side and put it in an excel spreadsheet and and assign points (value of worth for you) so if blogs are more important assign software A with 0 points and software B with 2 points but when you look at pages which is not as important but software A is better in this category so I only assign 1 point for software A and 0 points for Software B. Then add them up Good Luck.

Many thanks guys! I'll proceed to download the demo apps and test both. I'll admit that my main concern is actually having to deal with new developers and face all the delays and frustrations that come with that once again, after finally getting the site launched and working properly. What worries me most is that one of these devs I know very little about, and the other have been receiving a lot of criticism for his ethics and work methods.

We have one specific 3rd party developer company that has worked extensively on our site and did all the customization, created one special module for us, and fixed quite a few problems that Phpfox had or other 3rd party modules had. They earnt our trust and we are confident that it would be better to stay with only them accessing/working on our code. So I'm actually considering a couple paths that I could take to have a functional app without waiting for years or loosing my sanity during the proccess. Would like to know what you think about them:

1) Option A is to buy one of the 2 mobile apps mentioned in this topic with full source code (we'd choose the easier one to customize/edit) and handle all the custom work required to match our desktop site look/functionality and all the bug fixing to the company that already works with us.

2) Option B involves a more critical decision and probably more work for me, but the outcome might be even better. The thing is, this same company that already worked on our Phpfox website is the developer/owner of another social networking script (Moosocial) which has been growing very well and shaping up to be a really interesting option. They have mobile apps done by themselves and most plugins (modules) are made by their own company too. From what I read and researched so far, the support is way better then that of PHPfox and the script is light, less buggy and built on a more up-to-date framework. We already know that their team can fix or custom code almost anything and have solid ethics, from our past experience. Cost and total time to make this bigger change is still unknown to me as I have not approached them with this idea yet. So this option would mean to take the oportunity to move away from Phpfox into Moosocial, concentrate all our technical area under the same partner company, all that while getting our so desired mobile apps for iOS and Android.

FOR OPTION B:- moving out to some other script and loads of customization means lots of $$$ and time but the pro is that u will be with one developer and hassle free. if your website is already making some $$ then it will be right option if not then u should be rich to sustain till ur website make some revenue.

FOR OPTION A:- as far as i remember when i spoke to younet for the full source code they said they will provide but for a different price than the one mentioned in their website. yes this can be done... by customizing it from your moosocial developers and moveon.

for me both have their own pros and cons whatever u may select but u may need loads of $$$

Option C go to SocialEngine . If you are comfortable with SocialLoft then get their phpfox mobile app if you don't want to leave fox. Good luck if you go to the other script. Last time I contacted them, they were not allowing any third parties to dev. Not sure if they decided to change that idea.

Thanks again folks, I think $$$ and trust will be the defining aspects of this choice. @data66 I don't think SocialLoft has a mobile app for Phpfox hmmm... I think they only have apps for Moosocial, which is their product. And about SocialEngine, do you guys have strong and stable mobile apps for iOS and Android?

I also made the switch to SE and use the responsive theme as data does. And I haven't had to add a mobile app my members say the responsive theme works fine on there phones. I have a ton of the SEAO addon's some are pretty good some just not so good. But they release constant updates making the addons better. Downside there is no forum or anyway to contact them with problems. (after the 90 days or what ever it is) So if an update breaks something you need to pay them to tell them it's broken.

@beast-usa said:
I also made the switch to SE and use the responsive theme as data does. And I haven't had to add a mobile app my members say the responsive theme works fine on there phones. I have a ton of the SEAO addon's some are pretty good some just not so good. But they release constant updates making the addons better. Downside there is no forum or anyway to contact them with problems. (after the 90 days or what ever it is) So if an update breaks something you need to pay them to tell them it's broken.

Or come here and ask data!

if you take their support for a year ..you can contact them directly over support...they will solve all the problem without asking any money...iam getting things done pretty easily with this option....and u can negotiate or ask discount for such package and they will oblige....so far iam satisfied with them when compared with younet

I see... to be honest that is one of the few things that worries me, from all I could see on SEAO's website. It looks like most of their solutions (specially "services") are built in such a way that clients need to keep spending some amount of cash over time, instead of turnkey solutions that could be a little more expensive but would come with longer support (which is a model I prefer).

I guess I'll download Younet, SEAO and Moosocial mobile APPs and check them out. Then I'll ask each of them for quotes for what I need done and evaluate the prices, reputation and how well the apps worked on my tests.

@beast-usa said:
I also made the switch to SE and use the responsive theme as data does. And I haven't had to add a mobile app my members say the responsive theme works fine on there phones. I have a ton of the SEAO addon's some are pretty good some just not so good. But they release constant updates making the addons better. Downside there is no forum or anyway to contact them with problems. (after the 90 days or what ever it is) So if an update breaks something you need to pay them to tell them it's broken.

Or come here and ask data!

if you take their support for a year ..you can contact them directly over support...they will solve all the problem without asking any money...iam getting things done pretty easily with this option....and u can negotiate or ask discount for such package and they will oblige....so far iam satisfied with them when compared with younet

@vizruta about how much this yearly support costs and what does it cover?

@vizruta I bought all of them a year before I even made the switch. And why would I pay "subscription" to have them fix a bug in their addon? If I broke it NP I should pay but when an update (you can't roll back) breaks it why would I want to pay them to fix what they broke? LOL I want that kind of business!

They do have the most addon's but what they really need is a support forum or make a deal with data and have one of their NON-SALES people monitor it here. I need a few more things but with no support on updates that may or may not break your site? Without paying them to look at what they broke lol I have been trying to find them somewhere else.

For the most part most of their stuff works with small or a few bugs that most of the time you can fix. (With data's help lol) But when you are past the support time, don't want to pay a subscription for something you shouldn't need. And you see UPDATE in the AdminCP in SE for SEAO it's a roll of the dice maybe it fixes somethings, breaks others, just resets the things you already fixed... But either way if it goes bad you have no way to contact them unless you pay. I like to just find my own solutions to fixing things I love forums users helping users in real-life use of the products.

@beast-usa dont worry just go to live chat with sales and tell them that things broke down after the upgrade which was fixed earlier and i dont want buy the support for this small issue as it was not my mistake...iam sure they will consider...just make request and they will surely help..try this once and let me know what they say

@beast-usa said:
I also made the switch to SE and use the responsive theme as data does. And I haven't had to add a mobile app my members say the responsive theme works fine on there phones. I have a ton of the SEAO addon's some are pretty good some just not so good. But they release constant updates making the addons better. Downside there is no forum or anyway to contact them with problems. (after the 90 days or what ever it is) So if an update breaks something you need to pay them to tell them it's broken.

Or come here and ask data!

In such cases, when something on the website breaks because of some plugin upgrade, you may directly contact us here: support01@socialengineaddons.com We will resolve the issue without charging anything (in case issue is found to be occurring due to any recent upgrade made by SocialEngineAddOns.)